Intel, McAfee Promote Dynamic Plan for Securing the Cloud

Intel and McAfee on Friday announced a broad new secure cloud computing initiative aimed at businesses that may be delaying cloud adoption because they're concerned about protecting sensitive data and meeting compliance obligations.

Intel and McAfee are taking a two-pronged approach to securing the cloud that combines hardware solutions, like Intel's Trusted Execution Research to identify "known good" servers, with software solutions, like McAfee's ePolicy Orchestrator, to provide consistent security-policy management across physical, virtual, and cloud environments, Waxman said.

Greg Brown, McAfee's chief research officer in charge of cloud and data center solutions, summed up the current state of cloud security and laid out the areas that Intel and McAfee plan to shore up with more robust cloud security.

There are as well software-based solutions for what Intel and McAfee present as an integrated security stack for cloud computing. These include tools for gauging and validating the integrity of virtual machines, real-time cloud performance, software security, and endpoint awareness.

Building out that future cloud security stack would tie at the same time the moving parts of the cloud—application consumers, intelligent devices, and IT administrators—to deliver secure computing across the servers, networks, and storage infrastructure that makes up the cloud, Brown said.

Pathway to deliver that vision

"We do believe we have a pathway to deliver that vision, to not only make cloud security as good as traditional best-in-class enterprise security however also to increase adoption of the cloud by businesses," he said.